Looking for an inexpensive and easy way to get your students moving? Consider using a plastic shower curtain liner.

Review your learning target and determine how students might walk or move through the content. For example, in math, you might have students walk to points on a graph. In a geography lesson, you might have students place themselves on a specific city or geographical feature. Once you have your idea, place the liner on the floor and use a permanent marker to draw on it.

Here’s a photo of one I saw being used in a kindergarten classroom in Colorado. The students were learning how to retell the important parts of a story, and had to stand on each element as they told a peer about their book.

As you can see in this photo, the teacher only used ⅓ of the shower curtain. She was able to make several for just a few dollars and had several groups working simultaneously.

Two middle school co-teachers in Wisconsin developed a fun way to engage students and add tactile input to their math lessons. They made stick puppets with their faces on them (this specific class had a Charlie Brown theme.)​Each student received one of each. As the co-teachers worked through various math problems with students, one teacher would offer a correct answer while the other would offer an incorrect answer. Students would have a moment to reflect or talk to a peer, and then be asked to decide which teacher was correct by holding up the corresponding stick puppet. Teachers would choose one or two students to explain their thinking before revealing the correct answer.

If you don't want your face on a stick, consider choosing a football team, a favorite color, or a celebrity to represent yourselves.

Tic-tac-toe menus are a popular approach to differentiation. The teacher creates a 3x3 grid and develops nine activities for students to choose from. Usually the choices address a variety of learning styles or ways of thinking. Students can be directed to choose one of nine activities, or aim for three in a row, as in the game tic-tac-toe.

Over the years I have created a wide range of these menus. Here’s one of my new favorites – a menu that provides options for accessing a piece of text in a variety of ways. This could be used for fiction or non-fiction material, and is flexible enough that some of the items could be replaced with other ideas, depending on your technology or grade level. Download it here.

​Many teachers like to offer students the ability to choose work that interests them, yet moves their learning forward. This can be a challenge to organize, especially when students are learning at various levels.

Here’s an idea developed by a 5th grade teacher in Arizona. She organizes various learning tasks by Appetizers, Main Courses and Desserts. Tasks are color-coded and have various point values. Linked to this are color-coded binders with worksheets and independent assignments. When the teacher conferences with a student, she will guide them to certain colors, based on their progress with learning targets.